


Just Ten Minutes, Please!

by icybluepenguin



Category: Loki (movies), Loki - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor - Fandom, Thor: Ragnarok - Fandom
Genre: Children, Ficlet, Frigga is a Good Mom, Frigga needs a drink, Gen, Kids, Sibling fights, Siblings, Silly, Snakes, Temper Tantrums, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Younger Sibling, being a mom is hard, loki bugs thor, mblerg its me, young loki, young thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 05:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icybluepenguin/pseuds/icybluepenguin
Summary: Frigga is just trying to get some work done but her two high-energy children keep interrupting.





	Just Ten Minutes, Please!

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feels for poor Frigga, trying to raise a pair of kids like Thor and Loki. The snake incident reminds me so much of my own kids bothering each other that I couldn’t help but take a stab at it (see what I did there?) The part of Loki is played by younger daughter, almost word for word- minus the shapeshifting, thank goodness lol.

All she needed was 10 minutes of peace and she would be finished with this piece of diplomatic inanity.  She dipped her quill back in the ink and drew in a breath. 

“MaaaammAAAAAA!”

She cringed.  Her whole soul cringed.  She was so close to being finished and now the boys were tumbling through her door.  “Where is Eyja?  Isn’t she supposed to be watching you?”

“She left,” Loki said.  “Mama, I want to play with Thor!”

Frigga waved her hand helplessly.  “Then… ask him?  He’s right next to you.”

“I don’t want to play with Loki!  I want to play _alone_.”  Thor stomped his foot.  “He’s been bothering me all morning, and he threw a knight at me!”

She heaved a deep sigh, reaching for some store of patience that hadn’t been already drained.  “Loki, you need to let Thor play by himself.  Let’s find you something else to do until he’s ready to play.”

Loki threw himself to the ground and wailed.  “NO.  THERE’S NOTHING.  NOTHING!”

Gritting her teeth, she stood up and walked to kneel by him.  She waved Thor off back to his room, he might as well get what peace he could.  Loki had tears in his eyes and his little face was screwed into a pout.

“Loki love, Thor is not ready to play.  How about we read a book?”  _How about I put you in a closet while I finish this letter,_ was what she really wanted to say.

“NO!” Loki shrieked.  “I WANT.  TO PLAY.  WITH.  THOR!”

She grabbed him as he leapt off the ground, pulling his struggling body close so that he couldn’t follow Thor.  “Would you like to go for a walk?  Just you and me, special.”  Her shoulders tensed up at the thought of how much time that would take up.  The letter wouldn’t be finished until supper at this rate.

“NOTHING!”

She risked taking one hand off Loki to rub the bridge of her nose.  Thor had been a stubborn babe, too, but she remembered him being easier to distract than Loki.  Loki found an idea and nothing would do but for it to be true, no matter how impossible.  She did not want to think about the hours-long fit he had thrown when he couldn’t have the moon in his room.

“Loki love,” she said, with as much soothing softness in her voice as she could muster, rubbing his back.  “There is not ‘nothing.’  You can find something to play on your own.”

Loki looked at her like he wanted to squash her like a bug.  “No.  There’s _nothing,_ ” he carefully enunciated in a growl.

In case she hadn’t heard the last three times he had screamed it, she supposed.  Her head was beginning to hurt when Loki suddenly perked up.

“Thor is ready to play now?”

“Um… no, probably not.”

“Now?”

She shook her head.  “It hasn’t been that long yet.”  _Hasn’t it?_   Loki was a handful and a half, as her mother used to say.  Too smart for his own good and full to the brim with fragile but immovable pride. 

“Nooooowwwwwwww?” Loki whined.

With an exasperated sigh, she conjured a toy for Loki to play with, a green and gold little drummer boy.  “Just stay here and find something to do, sweetheart.  I know you can.  I have to get back to this letter before Papa needs it.”

She settled back at her desk.  Her mind felt like mush now- the words she needed were elusive and hard to grasp.  She couldn’t remember how to spell Salutations.  She scribbled it on a scrap paper, but it looked wrong.  How many times had she written that word and now it was just gone from her brain.

A scream had her jumping to her feet and running down the hall.  She burst into Thor’s room with a tired, “What now?”

Thor sat on the floor holding his arm, red in the face and breathing hard.  “HE STABBED ME!” he cried.  “HE HURT ME AND HE DIDN’T SAY SORRY!”

“Who he what now?”  Frigga blinked.  Then she turned a little, knowing what she was going to see.  There was Loki, tears in his eyes at the loud noise, holding a letter opener.  “What happened?” she asked, with no small amount of helpless despair.

Thor sniffled, affronted.  “There was a snake and I picked it up-”

“There was a snake in your room?”  she asked as she examined his arm.  Just a small cut, although it was bleeding freely.  She wrapped her handkerchief around it.  She didn’t really need to know what had happened.  It was the book-to-the-head incident all over again.

“No, it was _Loki_.  I picked up the snake and then he turned into Loki and said, “It’s me! Now play!” and he stabbed me and DIDN’T SAY SORRY.”

It was clear which part of this story was upsetting Thor the most.

“Loki, your brother is hurt.”  Frigga watched her second son, with his big green eyes under the mop of black hair.  It was even odds which way this would go- she loved Loki so much but he was a constant battle.  Late at night, she would curl around her pillow and wonder what she was doing so wrong with him that he never seemed to listen. Why couldn't she make him mind?  “What do we say when someone is hurt?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, sullen.

_Oh, it’s going to go that way.  I need a fucking drink._

“Yes, you do.  Come over here and help me take care of Thor.”

Loki shrank back.  “He yelled at me.  It was loud.”

“You hurt me!”  Thor shouted.

“TOO LOUD!”

Frigga rubbed her temples, not sure where she was going to find the patience to negotiate an apology out of Loki.  Coax or demand?  Threaten or cajole?  She knew that Loki felt bad about injuring Thor, that he just had poor impulse control, but how to make him admit that when his little hackles were up?  Her to-do list weighed on the back of her neck, every moment spent here placating her sons was just more time that list wasn’t getting shorter.  Her head ached.  She had the overwhelming urge to just walk away and let them smash each other to bits as long as they didn’t involve her for once.

“Loki,” she said with kindness she didn’t particularly feel.  “When someone is hurt, we-”

“He wouldn’t play with me!”  Loki pouted, as if that was reason enough for physical harm.  “I asked and asked and he said no.”

“You didn’t ask, you knocked over my battle!”

“ENOUGH!”  Frigga held out her arms, keeping the boys at bay.  She knew Loki hadn’t asked to play.  And she knew Thor hadn’t handled it with grace either, probably pushing the younger boy or yelling. “There will be no more stabbing, give me my letter opener back Loki, no more transforming, and if you two cannot find a way to play _together quietly_ , I’m sending one of you to Vanaheim!”

She slumped on the floor, holding her head.  This wasn’t how today was supposed to go.  She hated to yell at them.  She hated that they seemed to know exactly how to get her to yell.  She was tired.  She thought she might start to sob from rage and exhaustion and guilt.  She just wanted-

“I’m sorry, Thor,” Loki whispered in the smallest voice he could and even that couldn’t hide his resentment.  “How can I help?”

“Don’t cut me again,” Thor said, fingering the handkerchief.

Loki wormed his way into her lap, wrapping his little arms around her bent neck. 

“Let’s go for that walk now, Mama!” Loki bounced on her leg.

“Yeah!  I want to catch a frog, let’s go, let’s go!”  Thor tugged on her arm.

 _But that letter…_ she thought wistfully as she stood and let them pull her outside.  _At least they’re getting along, I suppose.  For now._


End file.
